EnabledMetals Patent Spotlights

EnviroGold Global Expands IP Portfolio with 20 Patents & Designs, Advancing CleanTech Focus on Resource Recovery, Resource Beneficiation & Contaminant Removal

EnviroGold Global Expands IP Portfolio with 20 Patents & Designs, Advancing CleanTech Focus on Resource Recovery, Resource Beneficiation & Contaminant Removal

Michelle

EnviroGold Global Expands IP Portfolio with 20 Patents & Designs, Advancing CleanTech Focus on Resource Recovery, Resource Beneficiation & Contaminant Removal

EnviroGold Global, based in Toronto, Canada is a Clean Technology (CleanTech) company involved in recovering critical, precious and strategic metals by reprocessing & remediating mine waste (tailings) to recover precious, critical & strategic metals – including gold, silver, copper & nickel.

The company announced on Nov 7 that it had acquired 13 patents & 7 designs (CleanTechIP) to assist with recovery of metals from its Hellyer Tailings Project in New Queensland. Application of the technology is expected to achieve production of 965,000 gold-equivalent ounces over the 8-year lifetime of the project. Metals recovered include gold and silver, copper, lead and zinc. Gold and silver recovery rates of >80% and >90% respectively have been demonstrated with total project after-tax free cash flows of US$ 350 million.

Details of Envirogold’s process technology are currently confidential, however the company disloses that its process “Electrochemical Separation Technologies” (EST) is used along with other mineral processing technoogies and know how to achieve recover metals from tailing resources.

The new CleanTechIP includes methods for beneficiation of iron ore and removal and destruction of contaminants including arsenic, cyanide, mercury & selenium via electrochemical oxidation. In addition, removal of “forever chemicals”: Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (“PFAS”), contained in industrial & mining effluents. In future the company is looking to apply its technology to direct lithium extraction (“DLE”), key for meeting future lithium battery demands. (EnviroGold, 2022)

US2023023272A1 : A Method of Recovering Iridium

Michelle

US2023023272A1 : A Method of Recovering Iridium

Publication Date: 26-Jan 2023
Current Owner: UNIV SYDDANSK
1st Inventor: Shuang Ma Andersen

This month’s EnabledMetals Patent Spotlight comes from the University of Syddansk in Denmark with the topic of recovering iridium. The first inventor is Prof Shuang Ma Andersen.

Iridium recovery requires extensive pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy and there is a desire to improve the efficiency, reduce the cost and time required and to diminish the lifecycle footprint of the recovery process. By using a pre-reduction of iridium oxide suspensions with hydrazine, formic acid or sodium borohydride, the subsequent stages can use milder reagents. The best results were obtained with hydrazine which provided almost 100% dissolution of the waste iridium catalyst.

For example, the IrxOy particles are sonicated in hydrazine solution, then reduced in hydrazine solution at 60-100° C for 1-3 h. The reduction takes the oxidation state down from e.g. Ir(IV) to Ir(III) as Ir2O3 for instance. Subsequently the particles are dissolved in HCl 1M and NaCl 3M aqueous solution at 103°C under reflux for 10 mins to 4 h. This solution can be further processed in a number of ways including use directly as a coating, reduction to Ir metal with hydrazine, precipitation as IrxOy with NaOH or treatment with H2O2/NH4Cl 3M to give (NH4)2IrCl6.

Characterisation methods confirm the chemistry described above and indicate that the pre-reduction step improves the subsequent dissolution by several orders of magnitude and in particular for hydrazine

Weifu Environmental Protection Patent Application for Environmental Catalyst Metal Separation Published

Michelle

Weifu Environmental Protection Patent Application for Environmental Catalyst Metal Separation Published

A patent application by Wuxi Weifu Environment Prot Catalyst Co Ltd (Weifu Environmental Protection), has just been published. with the following title and abstract:

CN115558793A (Futian, et al., 2023)

Title: Method for separating and purifying platinum, palladium and rhodium from platinum-containing palladium-rhodium solution

Abstract

The invention provides a method for separating and purifying platinum, palladium and rhodium from a platinum-containing palladium-rhodium solution, which comprises the following steps: adding a precipitator A into a platinum-palladium-rhodium solution at the temperature of 60-80 ℃ for reaction for 4-8 h, cooling to room temperature, carrying out suction filtration and washing to obtain a red rhodium precipitate and a platinum-palladium filtrate, and carrying out muffle furnace calcination, aqua regia impurity removal and hydrogen reduction on the rhodium precipitate to obtain pure rhodium powder; adding alkali to adjust the pH value of the platinum-palladium filtrate to 0.5 to 1.5, adding a precipitator B, stirring for 0.5 to 2h, standing for 1 to 4h, carrying out suction filtration to obtain yellow palladium precipitate and platinum filtrate, dissolving the palladium precipitate by aqua regia, complexing by ammonia water, filtering to obtain a clean palladium tetraammine dichloride solution, and adding hydrazine hydrate into the palladium tetraammine dichloride solution to reduce to obtain pure palladium sponge; adding alkali into the platinum filtrate to adjust the pH value to be 8-9 to generate a hydroxyplatinate, filtering, adding hydrochloric acid and ammonium chloride into the filtrate to generate yellow precipitated platinum salt, filtering, washing and calcining the platinum salt in a muffle furnace to obtain pure spongy platinum. The invention has the advantages of simple process, good precipitant selectivity and high product purity (greater than or equal to 99.95%).

Weifu Environmental Protection is a Chinese environmental catalyst manufacturer, part of Weifu Hi-Tech and Wuxi Weifu Lida Catalytic Purifier Co., Ltd. (Weifu Lida). It has been in a business relationship with Kaida Catalyst (KDA) for raw material procurement however since November 2020, it has reportedly broadened its procurement strategy of metals to include materials from Johnson Matthey and Heraeus. (Sina Finance, 2022)

Futian, G., Tian, T., Jia, J., Liwei, J., Jin, Y., Chao, R., . . . Xinhua, L. (2023, January 3). CN115558793A. Method for separating and purifying platinum, palladium and rhodium from platinum-containing palladium-rhodium solution.
Sina Finance. (2022, December 12). Kaida catalytically planned to go public, and 190 million sales revenue disappeared on the customer’s books. Retrieved from Sina Finance: https://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/newstock/zrzdt/2022-12-27/doc-imxwmhnp2226343.shtml